LORE
by Risa McDohl
Summary: Most of the people of earth would never know the names of the two men, boys rather, that that stuck out their necks in an effort to rescue the earth from certain demise. Deathfic. 1x2 flavored.


**Title:** L.O.R.E.

**Author:** Risa

**Pairing:** Heero/Duo

**Rated:** T - Death and nudity

**Disclaimer:** If I ain't Sunrise and Bandai then this ain't mine.

**Word Count:** ~2,000

**Summary:** Heero and Duo gave their lives to save the earth, and in the afterlife they have no regrets.

**A/N:** If the summary somehow wasn't clear enough this IS a deathfic, one of the bittersweet variety and implies a (sort of) life after death.

Even in times of piece and prosperity there still were radical anti-earth rebels that resided in the colonies. Although Preventer did its best to keep these forces at bay, the one that hid themselves the best managed to grow large enough to fund the manufacturing of a nuclear-powered missle launcher right under Preventer's nose. The organization called itself the Lore Operation for the Ruin of Earth, named for its recently deceased master Martin Lore. He played a small hand in the uprising of the White Fang, and believed with every ounce of his being the the earth was the cause of war and chaos. With earth still in tact there would always be conflict, always be misery. The people of the colonies would be the ones to evolve into a super race and transcend primitive human nature, if only the people of earth ceased to exist. This was what natural selection was all about. The strong would survive, and the weak would be destroyed. Even that meddlesome Preventer saw it coming.

The Lore Faction was very good at hiding its activity, but it wasn't perfect. One of the key factors in maintaining peace was vigilant surveillance of the people. Any unexplained monetary exchange was kept on watch by Heero Yuy. He was able to hack into almost any database and sweep away any footprints that indicated his presence. For the most part large sums of money went into reconstruction, but the one coded L.O.R.E. was receiving money from suspicious people, and it made Heero uneasy. It was his duty to keep the peace in tact, even if he had to revoke his previous oath to kill no more. On the other hand, what he found was probably nothing, though just in case he wanted to bring backup along. Duo was the closest, and also the best at stealth operations and escape. Unfortunately for them Heero was a little too hesitant to pursue this L.O.R.E. secret until it received just too much monetary backing. Their stronghold would not be easy to penetrate unnoticed.

"We may have to infiltrate the stronghold by assuming the role of members. Unfortunately I couldn't uncover quite what this group's intent was. They've done well to keep as much about this as possible offline."

"Which means we're not just facing anyone," said Duo, ducked behind a stone wall one hundred meters from L.O.R.E.'s stronghold with Heero. The base didn't look heavily guarded, nor was Heero able to detect any security cameras. Either this organization was extremely confident in its ability to stay undetected, or it couldn't afford to splurge on security. Whatever they were hiding was either nothing, or it was extremely expensive to produce and extremely dangerous. Unfortunately for Heero and Duo both of their guts tugged toward the latter. "Some people just don't know when to give it a rest. Leave the war of mobile suits behind only to begin something else? What in the world could they be thinking?"

"Whatever it is, it ends tonight. This world cannot afford to be plunged into more chaos and despair. It is our duty to prevent that."

"Took the words right out of my mouth," said Duo, yanking the safety ring out of a grenade with his teeth. If they couldn't get in undetected then they'd have to draw the enemy out and sneak in while they were distracted.

When they got in they encountered a few scientists that were child's play to knock out and stuff into a closet. It was so poorly guarded that Duo was almost dubious to believe that anything could be going wrong, though he just felt that something wasn't right. They were so difficult to locate, made such a point of making what their money went to a secret that even Heero couldn't figure out their intentions. He could barely figure out their location. One of the policies Relena helped solidify was the constant monitoring of purchased exports and imports, and the secretive were cast in suspicion. It was never a highly regarded policy, and was often ignored in the name of scientific ingenuity, which inevitably lead to the manufacturing of mobile suits and weapons. Such devices weren't so easily made under a watchful eye that was not so easily disregarded.

L.O.R.E. was different, and it didn't take Heero and Duo long to access the main computer and find the sick truth that it contained. The money they collected from wealthy supporters was spent on the development of seven nuclear missiles which, if fired in precisely the correct places, would trigger explosions and quakes barely low enough for the earth itself to withstand, and yet the dust, pollution, and radiation that'd be kicked into the stratosphere would be astronomical. The earth would be reduced to a barren wasteland in a matter of days, and would freeze with the debris blocking heat from the sun. All life would cease to exist. L.O.R.E. was White Fang all over again, only worse. They'd probably lied to many of the people who had endorsed their cause, threatened others, and no doubt had been developing in the shadow of White Fang. A Plan B if you will. Perhaps the worst thing about this was how far along this project went unbeknownst to Preventer. It was mind-boggling, the capacity for destruction the lowly human race was capable of.

"Shit, shit, shit! There's no way to control the missile launcher from here," said Duo, frantically weaving through files and access blocks. "The main controls are located at the Hawking Base toward the old Lunar Base."

"Then that's where we'll go," said Heero, sliding on his jacket.

"Man, are you crazy? They know we're here now! They'll probably launch those damn things before we can even get there. There's also the teeny tiny matter that we no longer have Gundams!"

"It doesn't matter. We must protect the Earth, even if it costs us our lives."

Heero Yuy and Duo Maxwell's names were never published by the press. Most of the people of earth would never know the names of the two men, boys rather, that that stuck out their necks in an effort to rescue the earth from certain demise. Those whom recorded the deeds of these boys were scholars that kept tabs on every waking detail of the battles of After Colony 195. Sources indicated that Yuy and Maxwell went MIA in the year After Colony 199 and were never to be seen again. Some hypothesized they may have boarded a faulty space craft and died of asphyxiation. Others say that the boys took up different names, changed their appearances, and went to live as other people. Relena Peacecraft hadn't believed either story. Pieces of ship debris were trapped in the earth's atmosphere and dragged down to earth, where they plunged to the sea. No one knew what that ship contained, but Relena had a sick feeling in her heart that day, which only grew sicker as the days and weeks and years without any signs of Heero were a reality.

Witnesses from other colonies saw what looked like comets being shot by a single battle craft desperately until one had ended up so close to the earth that the ship had nothing more to fight it than its own body. She didn't know how to prove it, but Relena just knew Heero was the one in that craft. She also knew that he wouldn't be coming back. Thanks to the disaster, though, Preventer was able to detect and detain the scientists and masterminds of L.O.R.E., deactivate the missile launcher, and destroy every trace, file, and iota of L.O.R.E.'s sick plan. All at the cost of two heroes the earth would never know.

"You finally got what you wanted, I guess," said Duo, floating bare and transparent in the cosmos as Preventer made quick work of the L.O.R.E. base. It was kind of neat now, to be able to float around in space without the use of a machine, all at the relatively low cost of his own life. Duo never really wanted to die, especially not before getting to know what the hell a normal life was. Heero on the other hand seemed content to carry out his missions until the bitter end, and in this case the end had finally happened. If there was one guy that sucked at dying it was Heero, and if Duo hadn't seen it for himself he'd swear Heero still had a physical body that was somehow still breathing. Lo and behold, Heero was as bare and transparent as he, and not a bad site from where Duo was standing. If he had to die, at least it was worth it. At least they didn't have to be alone.

"My purpose in life was to protect," said Heero, staring down at the beautiful blue earth fondly. "Mission accomplished."

"That's all well and good, pal. Now here's the kicker. What shall our purpose in death be?"

"I haven't thought that far ahead. Guess I was a little too used to surviving."

"Nice, that's rich," said Duo, placing his hands on his hips and sighing. "Only you would put placing a space craft in the path of a nuclear missile and surviving in the same line of thinking."

"I wasn't thinking," said Heero, placing his hand on Duo's shoulder. "I was only acting on my emotions.

"By the way, I apologize. My getting you involved cost you your life as well."

"Don't worry about it," said Duo, placing his hand on top of Heero's. Funny thing about being dead, they were neither cold nor warm, and yet there was a fuzzy sort of presence in Heero's touch nonetheless. "You're hopeless without me anyway. If it were you piloting that craft you wouldn't have reached it as fast, and then I'd be dead anyway.

"Great, dead. I've never even gotten to attend a college for the fun of it, or have any kind of lasting social life. I wonder how many people are going to remember us, or even figure out what happened?"

"The important thing is that they're still alive to remember us, however few of them there are," said Heero, his eyes in downcast slits. "Relena."

"Great, how'd I end up dying with a love-crazed lunatic?" said Duo, shaking his head with his fingers threaded in his bangs. "You really have it bad for her."

Heero didn't answer. He only drifted in front of Duo and placed his other hand on Duo's shoulder, gazing deep into his eyes. Although their bodies were transparent, they were solid to each other and they glowed like starlight. Perhaps there was something to be said about people turning into stars in death.

"It's not that I can read minds now, or anything," said Heero, his face drawing toward Duo's. "But like this, I feel like things are more simple now. That without the shackles life puts on us everything is put into perspective.

"Good night, Duo."

The two of them joined lips, and just as soon as they had their spiritual forms burst into fine specks of light. Their spirits would forever guard this sector of space, cursing evil intent and blessing prosperity. They were united as one, as the colonies and the earth were intended to be.

END


End file.
